


in the company of strangers

by evewithanapple



Category: Lost Boys (Movies)
Genre: F/M, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-25
Updated: 2018-03-25
Packaged: 2019-04-08 01:09:47
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,738
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14093709
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/evewithanapple/pseuds/evewithanapple
Summary: Star gets on a bus in Nebraska and gets off in California.





	in the company of strangers

She leaves Ogallala for California in the summer between junior and senior year. The plan has been formulating in the back of her mind for awhile, as she gathers magazine cut-outs and Grateful Dead cassettes and stashes them in a box under her bed. She reads articles about life on the West Coast – _Just a small-town girl from Minnesota, now she’s a movie star!_ – and dreams about walking on the beach, the freedom to go barefoot year-round, the smells of hash and patchouli in the air like mist. She doesn’t need to be a movie star; she just needs to be free.

Her decision solidifies when her friend Judy announces that she’s dropping out of high school and getting married to her boyfriend. Judy’s boyfriend, Wayne, works part-time at the gas station and drives a beat-up Plymouth. His nails are always yellow, and his cloths stink of gasoline. They’re going to move in with Judy’s parents until they’ve saved up enough for a house.

“It’s fine,” Judy says, while she just looks at her sadly. “I wasn’t going to college anyway, so it’s not like I need the diploma. We were always going to get married eventually. And – “ She lowers her voice a little, even though there’s no one around but the two of them. “- it’s better this way. For the baby.”

The idea of getting stuck in Ogallala with the likes of Wayne Hendricks and a baby is enough to finally push her into action. On a muggy night in July, she stuffs her cassettes and her clothes into a backpack and hitchhikes out of town, down the highway to where the nearest bus depot is. The earliest bus she can get is headed to Las Vegas, so she hops on. She can always catch another bus once they get to Nevada. The driver rips her ticket without even looking at her, and she’s so shaky all over with excitement, she can barely sit still as they roll out of town. When they stop in Denver, a middle-aged man in a flannel suit who smells heavily of sweat and cologne squeezes himself into the seat next to her. She doesn’t mind; he offers her a drink from his flask and she accepts. “What’s your name, sweetheart?” he asks.

She thinks: she’s crossed the state line now. She’s just another anonymous face in a crowd of strangers. She can be anyone she wants to be.

“Star,” she says, “I’m Star.”

 

* * *

 

 

The bus she picked ends up making a detour to Albuquerque, and for a second, she thinks about staying there: it’s warm and it’s beautiful, with little roadside stands peddling turquoise jewellery lining the street and mesa silhouettes standing up against the sky. She doesn’t stay, but she does buy herself a pendant in the shape of a half-moon that hangs down between her breasts and matching earrings that jangle when she swings her head. She’s finally far away enough from Nebraska that she can shed her jacket and jeans, changing into a linen skirt and matching top. Even in her cooler clothes, she can feel sweat gathering along her hairline. Will California be warmer than this, or cooler?

While in Albuquerque, she also buys new batteries for her Walkman, which had died somewhere around Pueblo. For the last leg of her journey, she leans against the bus window and listens to Janis Joplin.

 _Freedom's just another word for nothing left to lose,_  
_Nothing don't mean nothing, honey if it ain't free._  
_And feeling good was easy laugh when he sang the blues,_  
_You know feeling good was good enough for me_

This bus spits her out in a tiny town along the boardwalk. A sign tells her she’s in Santa Carla – Santa Carla, California. She hasn’t made it all the way to Los Angeles, but maybe that doesn’t matter; there’s a beach here, and a breeze, and a stage where there’s a new act up every night, even if plenty of them aren’t very good. She takes her sandals off and walks along the beach, squishing sand between her toes. She washes her hair in the ocean, flinging droplets in every direction as she shakes herself dry. The water renders her shirt and skirt sheer, and men on the boardwalk gawp. It makes her feel powerful in a way that the fumbling boys in her neighbourhood never had.

When night falls, new men arrive on the beach: boys, really, not that much older than Star is. The leader (no one could mistake him for anything but) has long white-blond hair and eyes that cut Star through to the core. She shivers, half cold, half excited. This, too, was something she never had at home.

“Hey,” he says, leaning on the bars of his motorbike. “Where’d you come from?”

“Out of the ocean,” she says, on impulse. It might as well be true. She left her old self behind in Ogallala, and her saltwater bath has been a baptism. She’s Star now. Star of the boardwalk, Star in the California night sky.

He extends a hand to her. “Want a ride?”

The wind whipping past her on the bike makes gooseflesh rise on her bare arms and legs, and she clings harder to the boy – David, his name is David – as he squeezes the accelerator. She knows they could crash at any second, but the danger is only an added thrill. She remembers hearing stories about girls who went with bikers, what nightmarish fates eventually befell them. She’s not worried. She’s going to live forever.

David takes her back to his cave afterwards, and they fuck underneath the Jim Morrison poster that leans against the wall. Star squeezes his hips with her thighs and ignores the pain; if the first time hurts, that’s just another little bump on the road to transformation.  She winds her arms around his neck as he kisses her collarbone, her breasts, her stomach. He buries his face between her legs, and she gasps as she digs her fingers into his hair. He kisses the taste of her into her own mouth, and she kisses him back. He bites her neck, and she lets him.

 

* * *

 

 

She misses the sunlight.

She can stand it, sometimes, but it always takes a toll. Everything is so cold now: the cave, the ocean, her skin. She has a little crocheted shawl to wrap herself in, but it’s not enough. Sometimes David takes pity on her and lets her wear his duster. It’s cold too, but at least it’s something.

David is, by turns, affectionate and angry and baffled by her attitude. “We’re immortals,” he says, spreading his arms wide as the others nod their agreement. “We’re _gods_!” Star thinks of church at home, stories about whole cities struck down in the blink of an eye. Is that the kind of God David imagines himself as? Is that what the pastor was preaching about? Is that her?

She still loves him. God help her, but she does. He’s her family now, her life. She still curls against him as he mouths at her neck. She still agrees to drink blood out of his favourite bottle. But she won’t kill. She refuses, and it drives him crazy.

“We are what we are,” he says, low and dangerous. “You gotta learn to live with it.”

She can’t. She won’t. This isn’t living, not really. How can it be eternal life when she’s chained to the night? She thinks sometimes about Judy – it’s been five years, at least, since she left Ogallala. Judy’s baby is probably in school by now. Maybe she’s had more. Or maybe she left Wayne and went back to school and moved on to something better. Star thinks about writing her a postcard, _hello from sunny California_ , but decides against it. She drew a line between that existence and this one, and that, at least, she needs to learn to live with.

Her Walkman’s still with her. It’s battered and scratched, but it words. Music is changing too – the performers on the boardwalk stage have swapped out their bare feet and bellbottoms for platform sandals and jumpsuits. The songs get funkier, the singers more androgynous. She can hear echoes of the old songs and their old messages, sometimes.

 _I love you, I know you love me_  
_I want you happy and carefree_  
_So that's why I have no protest_  
_When you say you want to go west_

There are newer versions of Star, too – new girls on the boardwalk every day, streaming in from Kansas, Idaho, Utah, Wyoming. Wherever life is boring enough to make sleeping on the beach seem like a preferable alternative. David doesn’t seem to notice them, save for when he’s hungry. The other boys do sometimes, and Star always tries to chase them away. Her story isn’t one that bears repeating.

When David brings Laddie to her, she knows he thinks it’s some kind of prize. A pet for her to take care of, a baby to rock to sleep at night. Like they’re growing into a family instead of stagnating in the stale underground air of the cave. Laddie laughs and claps his hands with glee as David and the others give him rides on their bikes and drinks from their cups. He doesn’t understand; he’s too young. Star holds him close and thinks, _please don’t be like me. Please don’t make the same mistakes._

It’s not all tragedy, which is a tragedy in itself. She loves David. She loves the others. She loves Laddie, even though she fears for him. She still exhilarates in bike rides along the cliff, as the waves underneath threaten to swallow anyone who goes over the edge. She still dances to the music on the boardwalk. Her life is in stasis, no less than it was in Ogallala, and she’s learned to live with it. This, at least, she can live with.

Then there’s a boy on the boardwalk, in the night, a boy with curly hair and one pierced ear and a leather jacket that’s both like and unlike David. He looks at her with desire, and she looks at him with need. For the first time in fifteen years, Star feels her blood start to move again. For the first time since 1971, when her bus rumbled into Santa Carla, she can look down a dark tunnel and see freedom at the end of it.


End file.
